While out for a walk in Bath, England, I happened to look down and see this damaged green leaf sitting in a vortex of the weathered and eroded surface of the walkway. I’m not necessarily one to read overt messages into photographs, but if you enjoy searching for metaphors you may be able to come up with a few that seem relevant to this image.
Continue reading A Fallen Leaf
One of the advantages of returning to the same subjects over the years is that this gives your vision for them time to evolve. Here I speak not just of aspens in general, but of this particular grove of trees. Some years ago, while photographing a different nearby subject, a large grove further up the hillside caught my attention. It posed two challenges. First, getting close to the grove would be extremely difficult. Second, it always seemed to have lost its leaves when the other trees I came to see were at their color peak.
Continue reading Aspen Thicket
It is easy for travelers to get swept up in seeing all of “the important sights,” the things that all the guidebooks list as the “Top X Things To See” in every city, town, or village. In truth, there are things on those lists that you really should visit. But there is a ton of fascinating stuff to be discovered if you go out and… just walk, perhaps with no particular destination in mind. These “discoveries” often create more enduring memories than the icons, and they help you start to form a personal relationship with places.
Continue reading Stairway, Bath
There are little personal spots all over the Sierra Nevada that I return to each year — a bend in a road, a tree, a favorite rock, a viewpoint. These trees are on that list. I suspect that most passers-by might not really notice them. They are along a route to a different popular place, and there’s a good chance that most people are thinking more about that destination. And when people leave that other spot, their attention may well be focused on the road more than on a couple of trees. But I notice, and I stop almost every time.
Continue reading Autumn Aspen Leaves